


Leaving Home

by fanfoolishness (LoonyLupin), LoonyLupin



Series: Chapter and Verse (Varric Tethras x Min Hawke) [20]
Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Found Family, Gen, Hopeful Ending, Loneliness, Melancholy, Storm Coast (Dragon Age)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-14
Updated: 2018-08-14
Packaged: 2019-06-26 16:51:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15667299
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LoonyLupin/pseuds/fanfoolishness, https://archiveofourown.org/users/LoonyLupin/pseuds/LoonyLupin
Summary: Namira Lavellan finds herself searching for a friend in the Storm Coast.  Leaving home is the hardest thing she's ever had to do, but Varric Tethras knows exactly what it's like.





	Leaving Home

The rain blustered at the opening of the cave, forcing their small cookfire to sputter and flare.  Namira sighed, casting another thin barrier over the cave’s entrance.  It was enough to block most of the rain while still allowing a wisp of smoke to escape, but it made the cave’s air humid and still. **  
**

It didn’t help that they still were scarcely out of the rain.  The cave was such a shallow area carved from the mountainside, and with the four of them packed into its small space, the moisture from the endless and inescapable damp built up fiercely.  She sat against the stone wall, somehow both chilled and sweaty.

Namira stirred their dinner, humming tunelessly to herself.  Strange how the weather of the Storm Coast could behave so differently from the northern Free Marches she and her clan had traversed the past few years.  The Waking Sea had never seemed such a great divide on the map, but she keenly felt the distance now.  

The Storm Coast was beautiful, yes, but it was a wilderness that would be best traversed with friends and family, and these men she journeyed with were nearly strangers still.  She gazed out at the rain amidst lush green spires and salt-carved stone, as lonely as she had ever been, and the beauty of the trees and surging sea left her hollow.

Strange the way circumstance could change a thing.  She’d have jumped at the chance to explore new locales just a few years ago; of course, she had never expected she would be the only Lavellan for leagues.  She had never thought she would miss the arid heat and the ever-present scent of sage and juniper.  But now, as a lone Dalish in the wet and cedar-scented air, she’d take a sunburn in a heartbeat.  

At least the food smelled comforting.  She and Varric had brought down a ram while Blackwall and the Iron Bull scouted ahead for camp.  Namira was not an especially skilled hunter or butcher, but part of her First training required familiarity with all roles in the clan.  Her butchery would have earned a tucked frown of mild disapproval from the venerable huntress Marellin.  Still, it was more than adequate for their purposes.

The ram’s meat was gamey and pungent, but it mellowed with the addition of wild onion and garlic.  Marjoram and spindleweed rounded the flavors further.  Rough-chopped black lotus roots, starchy and thick, added body.  

She stirred experimentally at the stew.  Despite the herbs, so different from those found near Sundermount, the stew still somehow smelled of home.  It would be ready soon, a welcome addition to the dried hardtack safe in their packs.

Gentle snores drew her attention.  Blackwall and Bull had drawn second watch, and were trying to get some sleep at the very back of the little cave.  Surprisingly, they were succeeding despite the less than ideal conditions.  She found herself impressed by their versatility, and turned to Varric.

No hint of drowsiness played around Varric’s eyes.  He slept as little as she did, most nights.  Perhaps it was a dwarven thing.  He sat a few feet away, his fountain pen scratching at the vellum he was never without.  Luckily he’d been prepared and brought it wrapped in wax for this expedition.  She peeked at his writing, noting neat, flowing script in shining black ink.

“What are you writing, Varric?” she asked, stretching and setting the tin ladle back down on a dry stone.  “If you’re keeping a diary, I’m afraid today’s adventures were rather lacking.  ‘ _Stumped around in the mud.  Passed the same pine tree three times.  Fought another damn bear._ ’”

Varric raised his head, hazel eyes crinkling in a smile.  “Shit, you nailed it, Doodles.  The Inquisition experience!  Maybe after you seal the Breach they should keep you on as a master scribe.”

“Do you really think I can seal it, after all?” Namira asked, faltering.  Her left hand clenched reflexively around the ever-present buzzing in her palm, a constant reminder of the strange magic that had marked her.  “Assuming the mages will help us…”

“Trust me, no one wants a giant hole in the sky.  If we can get an audience with them, they’ll join up, no questions asked,” said Varric.  He capped his pen carefully, slipping it back into a pocket of his heavy leather jacket.  “And if they don’t?  Sister Nightingale’s not the only one with contacts.  I’ve got some favors I can call if we need.”  His brows rose suggestively.  “The Seeker might not be so thrilled with some of them, but trust me, we’ve got options.”

“Is that who you write to?” asked Namira. She folded her arms, resting them on her knees.  “I’m sorry.  I’m prying, aren’t I?”

“Well, I can tell you’ve never trained under a bard,” Varric chuckled.  “You’re not one for subtlety, are you?”

“That obvious?”

“Oh yeah.”

“Sorry.  It’s just –”  Namira bit her lip, gazing out at the gathering dark.  She could still easily make out the towering shapes of the pines beyond the cave’s entrance, but she knew by now that the others saw only blackness.  “Cassandra, Bull, Blackwall, Sera… you’re the only other one here who’s left  _home_  behind.  So I wondered if you write to them.  Hawke and the others.”

Varric was quiet for a moment.  “Kirkwall hasn’t been the same since Blondie – since the Chantry incident.  Not as many people there as there used to be.  I write to some of them, sure.  But some of them aren’t so easy to find.”  

“You mean Hawke.”

“More than just Hawke,” Varric protested.  “Most of them left Kirkwall when she did.  Merrill and Aveline are the only ones who stayed.”

“Hawke is special though, isn’t she?” said Namira.  “I notice it’s  _Tale of the Champion_ , not  _Tale of the Champion and Friends_.”

Varric looked at her appraisingly.  He opened his mouth as if to say something, then shook his head, his cheeks slightly pink.  Maybe it was the smoke from their fire.  Namira eased up on the barrier at the cave’s mouth, opening it up a little to allow more smoke to dissipate.

Varric shrugged, his cheeks returning to their normal color.  “You couldn’t call it that.  Terrible title.  My publisher would laugh me right out of my contract.”   He waved one gloved hand.  “But you’re right.  Hawke’s special.”  A short huff of breath: she nearly mistook it for a sigh.  “Never knew anyone like her.”

“Do you know where she is?  Truly, I wouldn’t tell Cassandra.  It sounds like Hawke’s had enough to be going on with,” said Namira earnestly.

“For once, I don’t have to lie.  I don’t know where she is.  I know a few places she’s  _been,_  but right now?  Nah.  She moves around.”

“Are they still hunting her?  It’s so clear in your book that what happened in Kirkwall wasn’t her fault,” said Namira.  “Assuming the tale is accurate, of course.”  She tried to keep her tone light, but couldn’t help the nagging, guilty feeling that she was prodding a sore spot.  

“I wrote a lot of the real shit in my book.  But I left out plenty.  Things that were just too much to write down.”  He looked uncomfortable.

“I know what you mean.  Writing can be dangerous, can’t it?  I don’t write much for others myself,” said Namira hastily, trying to steer the conversation back to safer ground.  She’d gone too far, hadn’t she?  “Or, I do, but it’s record-keeping; marriages, illnesses, births, deaths, the daily history of the clan.  Things that are important to remember for the future.”  

She picked up the ladle, stirred again.  The stew bubbled.  “I don’t put down feelings.”  That wasn’t strictly true; her personal journal with its drawings and musings lay in her pack, wax-wrapped and magic-sealed.  She hurried to amend the statement, unwilling to speak even the smallest half-truths.  “At least, not where anyone else can read it.”  

Varric’s mouth turned up at one edge like the start of a smile.  It didn’t quite finish the motion.  “Maybe that’s best.  Less incriminating, anyway.”

Namira set the ladle down and rummaged in her pack for the waxcloth bundle containing the hardtack.  The stew was nearly ready.  “Maybe.”  

She paused, looking down at the bundle of shem food.  Everything about it was foreign: a beeswax wrapper instead of candelilla, the shape of the hardtack, the smell of it.  “Sometimes writing helps, I think.  Other times it makes things worse, reminding myself of what I lack.  I miss my home.  My people.  Why did I ever leave them?”

Varric folded up his stack of vellum papers.  “Well, if it’s any consolation, sometimes home leaves you first.”  This time, the motion his mouth made was nothing like a smile.

Namira let out a long breath.  “I didn’t mean to darken the mood,” she said softly.  “Are you all right?”

“Herald, demons are falling out of the sky, mages and templars are killing each other all over the place, and we’re here in the ass end of nowhere chasing who knows what.  I have to say the mood’s pretty dark already.  No need for you to add worrying about the dwarf to your list of shit to deal with,” said Varric.

“If you insist,” said Namira.  “But you’re certain?  Because I  _would_  worry about you, if it would help.”

“I’m flattered, but fine. Honest.”  He gestured to the stew.  “That done?  It smells a hundred times better than Hawke’s cooking, and a thousand times better than mine.”

“Yes, it’s ready.  But oh, Varric,” said Namira sadly.  “This isn’t even particularly good food by Dalish standards.  It’s just make-do food.  What  _did_ you eat in Kirkwall?”

“Sometimes it’s best not to know,” he said with a wink.  He clambered to his feet and to the back of the cave, not even needing to bow his head beneath the low ceiling.  He started nudging the others awake.  She watched him joke with them, jovial as ever.

She knew she’d hit him somewhere delicate with her clumsy attempts at conversation.  She’d been so eager to talk about what was bothering her she hadn’t stopped to consider if  _he_  wanted to talk about it.  She ladled soup into thin tin bowls, staring pensively at the way it steamed, wishing she had been wiser.  She supposed that was the difference between the Keeper, and the First.

Outside the rain blustered, and the winds squalled, and the waves crashed.  Inside the little cave, their little group shared bowls of rich woodland stew, making their plans for tomorrow and looking to the future.

Varric caught her eye during a lull.  She looked steadily at him.   _Really? You’re all right?_  she asked silently.

He grinned, dragging his bread through the stew before popping it into his mouth.  “For make-do food, this is delicious, Doodles.  Good stuff.”

She smiled back, warm in a way that had nothing to do with the nearby cookfire or the hearty food.  She took a bite of her stew.  It was good, better than she had thought it would be.

“Thanks, Varric.”

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you caught the hints of Hawke/Varric in there <3


End file.
